The first week of our two week winter holiday began with rain... lots and lots of rain! Not that Sydney (or many other parts of Australia for that matter) needs anymore rain. There was horrendous flooding just 17 kilometres down the road from us. But thankfully, despite the fact that there is a river less than 300 metres from our house, our street has not had any flooding for over one hundred years.
When we got home from church Sunday afternoon, there was a break in the weather, so I took the opportunity (and it was short lived let me tell you) to wander through the neighbourhood and survey the damage. The above photo is the beginning of the path that leads to the boardwalk that runs along (and across) the river. As you can see, the boardwalk is completely flooded... by the river!
This is the little creek (part of the river system) that is less than 200 metres from our house. The White Ibis were enjoying wading around, but otherwise it was impossible to move around because of all the water flooding up from the creek.
Monday just brought more torrential rain...
Tuesday was an exciting day for Munchkin as he got to attend his first library school holiday event since April last year (if memory serves). Our long seventeen week Delta lockdown began in late June last year and lasted until November, so there were no July or October library events last year. I can't remember if there were any events in January this year, but I was sick with COVID so couldn't take Munchkin anyway. Then the April school holidays were VERY simple - just Bingo and a simple craft - so this was the first time there were REAL events on as far as the boys were concerned.
This first event was a simple robot coding event but Munchkin really enjoyed it and worked well with the other little boy he was paired with for the activities. Meanwhile I roamed around the library searching for books and doing research for Term Three.
As per our usual routine, I increased the boys daily gaming time from 30 minutes to 60 minutes and they have all enjoyed the extra time to play games online with their cousins and their homeschool friends.
Friday all three boys came to the library for this wonderful show about liquid nitrogen. It was by far one of the BEST science shows the library has put on and I'm glad all three boys attended. Technically Monster is too old (the age range is 5-12 years) but since parents were allowed to sit at the back of the room, he joined me and watched as well. I listened to the show, snapped the photos, AND sorted through a HUGE stack of Ancient Rome books picking the best ones to read aloud to Monkey in Term Three.
It is a little hard to see in the photo, but the kettle is making rings of liquid nitrogen "smoke"...
Liquid Nitrogen is just COOL!!
Another family from homeschool group joined us for the liquid nitrogen show. Munchkin is best friends with their eldest son, and Monkey is best friends with their youngest son - who is now four years old. The quote of the day from this little guy... "Mum, I'm riding in the lift (elevator) with Monkey, because I LOVE Monkey!"
Me, I just LOVE that it is normal for my son to be best friends with a four year old when he is nearly thirteen years old. This would NEVER happen in public school.
We finished off the night watching the International Space Station fly past. If you look closely you can see a tiny white dot in the centre of this photo... that is the ISS! It was visible for seven minutes this particular night because of the path it was on. We froze for those seven minutes, but it is always fun to watch it fly past.
I got some decent walking in on Friday as well!!
We have continued to read our literature selections most evenings through the holidays, so we finished off another book in the Series of Unfortunate Events series.
And, as always, Munchkin did a LOT of independent reading.
For anyone who might be wondering, Monster is doing lots of reading, but he is currently working through a big book that is a compilation of Sherlock Holmes stories, so it will be awhile before I report any finished reading for him.
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